The allegory of the drop and
the sea has been taken from the Sufis, but it has also extremely much pleased
the poets. No one has omitted it, so much so that this theme
has become shopworn. Now, whoever versifies it, the verse itself becomes devoid
of relish/pleasure. The author too has composed with this theme a number of
times, and the best one is {21,8}, because
the relish of the idiom has spiced up a flavorless theme. (195-96)

When the drop merges with the sea, then it no longer has
any further fear that the earth or the air might swallow it up. In the same
way when a man would merge his individual self with the Lord, then he no longer
fears oblivion, and he becomes protected from all the world's changes. That
task of which the result would be good, only that one is good-- that is, for
a person only to merge into the source is good. (343)

FWP:

The commentators are convinced that the verse is recommending
such a merger, but if we look closely at the grammar, it's not necessarily so. The first
line actually uses two subjunctive verbs, the effect of which is to render
the proposition extremely tentative-looking. (More common, and more assertive,
is a subjunctive 'if/when' verb paired with a future 'then' verb.)

After such a tentative first line, the second line moves
to radical abstractness. A certain kind of 'task' or 'action' is defined as
'good'-- but we're not told whether the action described in the first line
falls within this definition or not.

The process of deciding is made remarkably subtle and elegant
by means of the word ma;aal , which is related to avval
and has a strong connotation of returning to one's origin. The task is good
of which the aim or purpose-- or 'return to origin'-- is good. There's a doubleness
here of teleology on the one hand (the sense of a final purpose or goal),
and source on the other (the sense of a return to some primal condition).

So we're still left to ask, is it good for the drop to merge,
in either a teleological or an originary way, into the sea? The Indo-Muslim
Sufistic chorus answering affirmatively is loud and clear, and just about
unanimous. It seems almost perverse to consider any other possibility. I offer
only two small bits of counterevidence: the unusually tentative grammar of
the first line, and the conspicuous set of verses in which Ghalib insists
on the virtue of using only one's own resources, and the shame of borrowing
or being dependent; on such verses, see {9,1}.

I certainly don't think that Ghalib meant for us to conclude
that the drop should not merge with the ocean. But it's also clear that in this
verse (unlike some others) he didn't set up-- as he certainly could have--
a resonant endorsement in favor of its doing so. He's taken care to leave the
question open, to force us to decide for ourselves, bringing to bear the evidence
of our own temperaments and our own lives. In some respects the role of the second line here resembles the role of the second line in the previous verse, {174,7}.

And do we really need that kih in the second line? My students all agree that it ought to count as padding; for more on this, see {17,9}.